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Unlike some religious fundamentalists, the new fundamentalists don’t even pretend to affect measured amounts of pious concern for their opponents. Instead, the new fundamentalists deploy outrage and vituperation as their weapons of choice. This is the world-view of the “minority fundamentalists,” whose purpose is to eradicate all forms of discrimination in the name of liberating the “oppressed.” Its playbook includes using intimidation, humiliation, censorship, and self-censorship to punish those who think differently.

Gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and religion are among the categories of oppression most likely to be considered the walls and ramparts to be breached in the name of compassion, inclusion, and equality.

The weakening effect of identity politics is that it prioritizes equality over freedom and, in doing so, locks people into specific categories at the expense of individual liberty. The politics of identity has become the artillery ranged against the walls of liberal democracy, resisting reason, and attesting that before any other discussion or argument stand the assertions “I am” and “You are” — which are beyond the reach of compromise or negotiation.